A little history of Carcosa, courtesy of our good friends at Wikipedia.

Carcosa is a fictional city in the Ambrose Bierce short story “An Inhabitant of Carcosa” (1891). In Bierce’s story, the ancient and mysterious city is barely described, and is viewed only in hindsight (after its destruction) by a character who once lived there.

The city was later used more extensively in Robert W. Chambers’ book of horror short stories published in 1895 entitled The King in Yellow. Chambers had read Bierce’s work and had also borrowed a few other names (including Hastur) from Bierce’s work.

Later writers, including H. P. Lovecraft and his many admirers, became great fans of Chambers’ work and incorporated the name of Carcosa into their own stories, set in the Cthulhu Mythos. In the stories of Derleth and a few others Carcosa is the residence of the Great Old One Hastur. Occasionally, Hastur will alter reality and merge parts of Earth into Carcosa, usually bringing along unwilling people as well.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 6th, 2006 at 5:11 am and is filed under Books, Lovecraft, Webcomic, Weirdlings, comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.